The Triumph of Ginevra Weasley
by ThatTinyRedhead
Summary: When Harry Potter walked into the Forbidden Forest to die, he did not survive. Who will take up the gauntlet to kill Tom Riddle once and for all?


**A/N & Disclaimer: I was inspired by a Tumblr post of "What would happen if Harry had actually died?" I do not own anything here, just wanted to write a what if. **

Hagrid's shaking arms finally dropped, depositing Harry Potter's limp body at Voldemort's feet.

Everyone screamed. There were cries of anguish from all of his friends, none more agonizing than that of Professor McGonagall. Hermione and Ron clung to one another; Ron was yelling, Hermione was crying, both were furious and terrified and heartbroken. Neville and Luna were screaming at Voldemort, who stared at them all with cold eyes.

Only one person was silent, unable to form the words, thoughts, or screams that the others were letting out. Ginevra Weasley's eyes were locked on Harry's body, her throat closing as she fought back the tears she could feel rising up. She clenched her jaw, and a few tears slipped out.

"Silence!" Voldemort ordered, and there was an automatic silence over the crowd. They stood at the doors to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, unable to make a sound. Ginny was fine with this, she would have no idea what to say anyhow.

All she could do was stare at Harry.

"It is over!" he cried. "Harry Potter is dead! He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!"

Ginny heard her brother scream something at Voldemort, but she couldn't make out the words. There was a roar of blood rushing through her head, muffling the sounds around her. She didn't realize that the silencing spell had been broken somehow and was then quickly reapplied.

She couldn't make out the words of Voldemort telling everyone that Harry had been trying to flee the battle when he was caught and killed, but she heard the tone of his voice and knew that he was taunting the survivors from the battle.

Suddenly, Neville flew forward, charging at Voldemort, but was quickly taken down.

Ginny still did not take her eyes off of Harry.

She almost registered Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange talking about Neville, about his family, and Neville refusing to back down. In the back of her mind, she remembered the quite boy who nervously asked her to go to the Yule Ball with him in her third year, how anxious he had been that she would say no, even if he was just asking her as a friend, and how happy he was the night of the ball. How much he had changed since then, charging at the people responsible for so much pain and death.

She wanted to charge at Voldemort as well. She wanted to scream and yell and she wanted to run to Harry's body and see for herself if he was dead.

As Voldemort forced the Sorting Hat onto Neville's head, saying that there would be no need for other Houses as Slytherin would do fine for all of them, she watched Harry's body.

She almost thought she saw his fingers twitch as the Sorting Hat caught fire. She heard a crashing in the distance, the sound of giant footsteps coming toward them. In her mind's eye, she saw Harry leap to his feet and pull out his invisibility cloak, throwing it around him and making a break for it.

She saw him run inside, into the fray where the fighting would begin again. She saw him take down Voldemort, reminding him of the power of goodness and love and saving the wizarding world from the imposing darkness.

She watched his fingers closely, staring at them so hard she nearly went cross-eyed.

But as the giant approached, screaming for Hagrid, and Neville pulled the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat, slicing off the head of Voldemort's snake, there was no movement.

Harry was dead.

Chaos reigned. Ginny was rooted to the spot, but everyone began moving back inside the castle, spells firing. She was knocked out of her stupor long enough to dodge a few curses she saw coming her way, and she turned and ran inside with the rest of them. She watched Voldemort send spells flying, killing Seamus Finnigan and Hannah Abbott as they tried to run into the Great Hall. Inside the Great Hall, House Elves had charged at Death Eaters, and nearly everyone she knew that had survived the first wave of Voldemort's attack was fighting all at once. She caught sight of Yaxley battling George and Lee Jordan, Ron was teamed up with Neville and they were fighting Fenrir Greyback, Hagrid was just about to throw Macnair across the room.

She was flanked by Hermione and Luna, both of whom had caught up with her. They were about to turn and begin joining the fight when Ginny felt a curse blow past her, missing her by a few inches.

The three of them turned, seeing Bellatrix Lestrange pointing her wand at them and laughing maniacally. Immediately, they began shooting spells at her. Ginny could not find it in her to open her mouth to speak for even a spell, so she fired off as many nonverbal curses as she could remember. Hermione and Luna were battling just as hard as she was, screaming spells and trying to get the best of Voldemort's last, best lieutenant, but they were of no match.

Ginny's eyes widened and she almost screamed as a killing curse flew past her, only barely missing her. She was about to fire it back at Bellatrix when she heard her mother's voice ringing over the chaos of the battle, "Not my daughter, you bitch!"

Molly Weasley stormed into the duel like tornado, ripping off her cloak as she ran to free her hands. She swept Ginny, Hermione, and Luna out of the way as she snarled at Bellatrix, waving off anyone who tried to come to her aid. "Get back! Get Back! She's mine!"

As they dueled, other fights began to die down as people lost their final duels. Ginny turned from her mother to see Voldemort facing down McGonagall, Slughorn, and Kingsley all at once, only a few feet away from where she had been standing. She wanted to join the fight, she wanted to do something, but all she could do was stand there, caught between the two duels, waiting for a victor from each.

Suddenly, with a scream, Molly shot a curse at Bellatrix. It soared under her arm and hit her square in the chest, and for a moment, she looked like it didn't affect her. Then, she toppled, collapsing to the floor in a heap. Dead.

Voldemort screamed, enraged, and Ginny stepped back just in time to miss being hit by the airborn body of Kingsley, flung backwards with McGonagall and Slughorn as Voldemort lashed out. He raised his wand and pointed it at Molly Weasley.

"_No!_" Ginny screamed, stepping between Voldemort and her mother and putting up the strongest shield charm she could manage. Whatever spell he'd sent fizzled before it could reach her and when the glow of it disappeared, Ginny saw the look of pure confusion on Voldemort's face as he watched her, standing in front of her mother with a defiant and furious look on her face.

"And who is this?" Voldemort asked.

Ginny's entire body shook with fury. She held her wand high, ready for whatever was coming next. "You don't remember me, Tom?" she asked, barely managing to keep her voice from shaking.

"Ginny, what are you doing?" her mother hissed from behind her. She didn't dare turn around, but heard more whispers and suddenly, with Bill's interference, Ginny and Voldemort were standing alone in the middle of the Great Hall, facing one another down.

"Ginny…" Voldemort whispered, his voice trailing off as his red eyes narrowed in thought. "Not Ginevra Weasley?"

"The very same," she snapped.

"I must admit, I'm quite impressed to see you here now," Tom Riddle said. "The last I saw of you, I believed you were dead."

"Not even close," Ginny said. "Harry saved my life that night. He saved me from you, Tom Riddle, and now he's done it again."

Silence was the only thing to be heard in the Great Hall now. No one dared speak a word, and all of their eyes were locked on Ginny Weasley, the youngest of the Weasley family, the seventh child of a seventh child, as she faced down Voldemort, Tom Riddle, the beginning of their suffering.

"He has not saved your life tonight, child," Tom said, his voice mockingly sympathetic. "He has died trying to flee the castle, trying to save his own life."

"He did not," Ginny argued, her temper flaring. "He saved us all. Harry Potter would never try to save his life above the lives of others."

"Oh, but he did," Tom said. "And now, that-"

"It was no accident that you found him in the forest, Tom," Ginny said, cutting him off. This angered him, but she didn't stop. "It is no accident that he died tonight." She lifted her chin at him defiantly. "Did he even try to fight you when you killed him?"

Tom didn't answer, but his red eyes burned with anger at her.

Ginny leveled her wand at him. "You won't be killing anyone else tonight, Tom."

"You dare-"

"Harry's sacrifice tonight saved us all. I know more than you think Tom." This time, her voice did shake, as memories from her first year at Hogwarts flooded her mind. "I know you better than you'd care to admit. I know more about you than anyone else. You let me inside your mind when I was a girl."

"A tragic mistake, I now admit," Tom said. "One I will be happy to remedy now." He raised his wand and sent some kind of curse, but it did not penetrate Ginny's quickly produced shield.

"I know the biggest mistake you've made to date," Ginny said, ignoring the fact that she had just barely managed to conjure a shield in time. "Would you like to hear it before you make another?"

"Silence, you impudent girl!" Tom yelled. There was a burst of light and Ginny felt the spontaneous effects of a silencing spell. But she was right when she said she knew something he didn't, and opened her mouth to speak anyway.

"Aren't you wondering why your spells aren't holding?" she asked. "You can no longer silence us, Tom. Harry's sacrifice leaves us protected and makes you weak against us. You will not defeat us."

"It seems I only have to defeat you," he said easily. "One small Gryffindor girl, the last of the front line of Hogwarts to stand against the Dark Lord. I believe that I have what it takes."

"Do you?"

"I have defeated Harry Potter. I have defeated Albus Dumbledore. I have defeated Severus Snape. My army has taken Hogwarts, and all I need do is defeat one child to finish this battle? With the Elder Wand in my possession, there is nothing I can't do."

"Possessing the Elder Wand is not enough to win, Tom," she said. "You have to be its master. Didn't you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard. The Elder Wand was Dumbledore's, yes, but it chose a new master before Dumbledore died. It chose someone who never even laid a hand on it and he didn't even realize what he'd done."

Tom glared at her, waiting for her to get to the point. "I killed Snape."

"You did," Ginny confirmed. "But Snape was never the master of the Elder Wand."

"Impossible!" Tom hissed. "Snape killed Dumbledore."

"He did," Ginny said. "But someone else disarmed Dumbledore before Snape got there."

Eyes turned around the room, looking for the secret that Ginny Weasley seemed to know that no one else did. Even Ron and Hermione looked confused, even after spending the last several months with Harry trying to do what Ginny was doing now.

"Draco Malfoy was the true master of the Elder Wand."

Tom's nostrils flared, and his eyes darted around the room, looking for a trace of the silver-haired Malfoy family. "I will deal with the Malfoy boy later. But for now-"

"That's not quite all, Tom," Ginny cut off. This seemed to enrage him, but Ginny pressed on. She'd come this far, and it was too late to turn back. "Because Draco is no longer the master of the Elder Wand."

Tom seemed to want to hear this and motioned for her to continue.

"Harry disarmed Draco weeks ago," Ginny explained. "When Draco was overpowered, the wand's allegiance changed."

Murmurs started up in the crowd. Tom sent out a weak silencing charm that did nothing to stop their whispers.

"If that's the case, then I am certainly the master of the Elder Wand," Tom said confidently, turning the wand over in his hands. "For I both disarmed and killed Harry Potter tonight."

Ginny swallowed hard. "You're correct, Tom, but you do not have all of the information."

His eyes narrowed again, red and angry and locked on Ginny. "What more could there possibly be to this tale of yours?"

"I know something you don't, Tom," Ginny said, feeling her legs shake yet stand firm at the same time.

"And what might that be?" he hissed.

Ginny reached into her robe and withdrew the hawthorn wand, Draco Malfoy's wand, the wand that Harry had let Ginny take from him minutes before he went into the Forbidden Forest to face Voldemort one last time, telling her the truth of the Elder Wand and how it had come to be his by right. "I disarmed Harry before he was killed," she said, holding Draco's wand in her left hand and her own in her right. "I am the true master of the Elder Wand."

Tom's eyes were locked on the second wand that Ginny held. She felt warmth seep out from it and into her fingers, filling her with the power of the Elder Wand. It was if it could sense what was about to happen. The sun began to rise above them, visible through the cracked walls of Hogwarts.

"So, it comes down to this," Ginny said. "If the wand knows that I am its true master, then you cannot beat me. If it does not know, then you'll claim your victory. The question is, Tom, what do you trust more: your own belief that death is enough to claim victory or the word of a girl who walked through your mind and survived?"

Tom Riddle's eyes were suddenly obstructed by the shine of the rising sun, and Ginny was blinded at the same time. She heard Tom yell out the killing curse and the sound of it rang in her ears as she called out her own spell, the last one of the war.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

"_Protego!"_

There was a bang like the blast of a cannon, and flames erupted between them where the killing curse met Ginny's shield. In the glare of the sunlight, Ginny watched the Elder Wand fly from Tom Riddle's hand, spinning across the air, and landing at her feet. The two wands in her hands released the shield, and as it fell, she watched Voldemort fall to the ground, his red eyes rolling back into his head.

Ginny dropped Draco Malfoy's wand, holding her own aloft as she stared at the body, shrunken and feeble. She left the Elder Wand on the ground as she stepped forward toward him, other survivors walking up alongside her.

Ginevra Weasley stood in triumph over the body of Tom Riddle, killed by his own rebounding curse, and around her, cheers erupted.


End file.
